Out With The Old, In With The New - Agile Marketing For Real Estate

With technology drastically changing, it is no surprise that 84 percent of homebuyers found online information to be a crucial part of their house search. On that same note:

78 percent of marketers with social media accounts have reported increased traffic to their website.

According to the National Association of Realtors, 48 percent of brokers report that “keeping up with technology” is the biggest challenge agents face.

So how can you adapt to the ever-changing landscape of real estate? One possible solution is a popular method known as agile marketing.

WHAT IS AGILE MARKETING

Agile Marketing is a tactical marketing approach in which marketing teams collectively identify high-value projects on where their collective efforts should be. These efforts can be implemented in: optimized websites curated content on blogs, captivating video content, email marketing strategies, and an understanding of web analytics to turn potential leads into buyers. The main goal of agile marketing is to cover as much ground as you can and deploy marketing out faster while maintaining the integrity of your brand.

Agile marketing implementation will have these four features in some form that you can incorporate into a marketing strategy for your real estate business :

Sprints - A sprint is a timetable that is given to your team to track project or campaign completion

Stand up meetings - A couple of times a week, your team should get together and have a brief check-in. Each team member goes over what they did the day before, what they're planning to do today, and any roadblocks they've encountered

Project Management - Whether it's the good ole' whiteboard with sticky notes or specialized software, you need a centralized way to track your sprint that everyone has access to. The best campaigns are the most organized.

Teamwork - While an individual may "own" a project, the success or failure of the sprint rests on all the team members. Everybody has to be ready to collaborate in the Agile framework. Transparency is key!

PUT IT TO ACTION

Website is non-negotiable: Prior to physically visiting a home , the majority of consumers will search online to research homes and communities that fit their needs. In real estate, a website will not only show potential clients the home details as well as your capabilities but also an opportunity to regularly keep your clients up-to-date on listings. There is great ROI to having a well designed and easy to use site.

Blogs: Blogs are a great way to optimize your SEO presence and to draw traffic back to your site. Use this space to showcase your properties. Create infographics about mortgage rates, keep your audience updated on new and upcoming listings or anything else you can find useful. Integrate videos and start sharing it everywhere you possibly can. This is one of the best ways to build an audience to market your business to.

Interactive Tours and Video Content: Video and 3D Tours can be a powerful tool for realtors. Use this to show staged homes for prospective buyers or client testimonials. Video content gets 1,200 percent more social media shares than text and images combined. Which makes sense being that YouTube is the 2nd largest search on the internet.

According to the National Association of Realtors on the importance of implementing videos:

70 percent of homeowners prefer to list with a real estate agent who uses video marketing to advertise their home. (hint, hint ...)

Homes with drone photography as a part of the marketing plan sell, on average, 68 percent faster than those without. By 2020, it is estimated that more than one out of every five commercial drone shoots will be for real estate purposes.

73 percent of sellers are more likely to list their home with an agent who leverages video to market their property.

Social Media: Did you know that Americans spend an average of 58 minutes per day on Facebook and 32 minutes a day on Instagram? The average American Facebook user clicks on eight ads per month. One of those ads could be yours. Now is the time to maximize these platforms. They allow the agent to be in touch with prospective buyers, promote listings, and grow your business and brand in real-time. Instagram and Facebook ads allow you to pick an audience, budget, post type (e.g. image, video, carousel) and the length of the campaign. In addition, you can use targeted hashtags to ensure posts are present to the people you’d like to reach. Do not underestimate the power of social media.

Email Marketing:

According to Statista, the average American checks their email more than 10 times a day and is considered their preferred way to receive updates from businesses. And of that average, 73 percent of millennials prefer communication from businesses to come via email. Using email, you can attract and retain prospective buyers personalized messages that promote your content, brand, and listings. You can segment contacts and use personalization techniques to deliver listings that prospective buyers can’t ignore. Oh, and don’t forget to add social sharing buttons because it has been shown that emails with social sharing have an increase of 158 percent in CTR.

Automation: How can you be in several places and make sure your customer needs and concerns are being addressed in a timely manner? Automation. Automation is the key to getting in front of your clients without physically having to be in several places and platforms at once. Setting up your Facebook Page with messenger allows you to set up messaging sequences so that you are able to interact with users, creating conversation, send out listings to subscribers.

Analytics/ Reporting: Why is this important? Why put in all this work and not follow up on its progress? Marketing real estate involves analytics. When creating your website, you should, in tandem, install google analytics (our preference) or any analytic tool to your site. Having an analytic tool tracking your metrics will let you know what content is working and website visitors over time. In short, it is a great way to understand whether or not your efforts are working. Are your posts reaching your target audience? How many people are clicking on your videos and your site? It sounds like a lot but once you learn about analytics and its purpose, it will all make sense and become a crucial part of future business decision making.

These are just a few practices we found success with that elevates our clients’ real estate marketing. With the use of the agile approach, we are firm believers your marketing efforts will not be in vain.

Have more questions? Reach out to any of our marketing professionals and we would love to sit down with you!

At WDC, we believe honest business and innovative design go hand-in-hand. Our talented team of designers, marketers, and developers are as diverse as their work. We offer a range of services from creative web design and development to digital marketing strategies and branding solutions tailored specifically to your business. Contact Bill at [email protected] or visit www.wilmingtondesignco.com.